The Lacemaker's Vow: The Visiting Baronet

The carriage wheels bit into gravel with a sound like teeth grinding bone.

Lord Ashford stood at the drawing room window, watching the cloud of dust rise and settle in the autumn light. His hands remained clasped behind his back, fingers interlaced with a tightness he did not trouble to hide from the empty room. Somewhere behind him, his wife issued clipped instructions to a housemaid about the placement of flowers in the east parlour, her voice carrying the particular sharpness of a woman preparing for inspection.

"Two arrangements, Mary. Not three. I will not have the tables crowded when Sir Marcus arrives. He is a man of order, whatever else one may say of him."

Lord Ashford did not turn. Through the glass, the carriage had drawn to a halt before the portico, and he could see the crest on the door, a hawk clutching a weasel, rendered in paint that had begun to crack. The horses stamped. A groom hurried forward with the mounting block. The sun caught the brass handle of the coach door as it swung outward, and a gout of yellow light spilled across the stone steps like a held breath finally released.

"Sir Marcus and Lady Fenwick," announced Wilfred from the doorway, his voice carrying the formal cadence he reserved for arrivals of consequence. "My lord."

Lord Ashford inclined his head. He straightened his waistcoat, a small vanity, and crossed the room to meet his guests in the front hall. The marble there was cool beneath his boots, and the scent of beeswax and lavender polish rose to meet him, the particular perfume of a house made ready for judgment.

The front doors stood open. Lady Beatrice had already taken position near the staircase, her posture rigid as a soldier on parade, one hand resting on the newel post as though claiming territory. Julian lounged against the balustrade a few steps behind her, every inch the picture of aristocratic ease, though his eyes moved with the quick attention of a card player counting his opponents.

Lord Ashford stepped into the light of the open door.

Sir Marcus Fenwick unfolded himself from the carriage with the deliberate movements of a man who refused to be hurried by anything, weather or welcome. He was shorter than Lord Ashford remembered, broader across the shoulders, his face weathered to the colour of old rope by years spent examining tenants and fences. His coat was good but plain, the cut an honest country cut, and his boots bore the dust of the road despite his wife's evident efforts with a brush.

"Sir Marcus." Lord Ashford descended the steps, hand extended. "Welcome to Whitmore. I trust the journey was not too tedious."

"Tedious is the word." Sir Marcus took the proffered hand in a grip that was brief and businesslike, the calluses on his palm pressing against Lord Ashford's kid glove. "Road's gone to ruin past the crossroads. You'll want to see to it before the winter sets in."

"I'll speak to my steward."

"Do that." Sir Marcus released the hand and turned to offer his arm to the interior of the carriage. "Mother. Come down. No sense dawdling."

Lady Fenwick emerged into the daylight with the cautious grace of a woman who had spent her life entering rooms where she suspected she might not be entirely welcome. She was thin, sharper-featured than her son, with a mouth that looked as though it had learned to smile late in life and never quite trusted the habit. Her gown was fashionable but a season behind, the lace at her cuffs a fraction less intricate than what one might expect for a baronet's wife visiting a viscount's household.

"Lord Ashford." She executed a curtsey that was technically correct and gave nothing away. "Your servant."

"Lady Fenwick." Lord Ashford bowed. "My wife is within. May I present her?"

He turned, offering his arm, and led his guests up the steps and into the cool dimness of the front hall. Lady Beatrice advanced to meet them, her silk rustling against itself, her smile fixed in place like a portrait that refuses to age.

"Sir Marcus." She offered her hand with the condescension of rank meeting money. "How good of you to make the journey. We have been looking forward to your visit these many weeks."

"Lady Ashford." Sir Marcus took the hand and bowed over it with a stiffness that might have been deference or might have been arthritis. "You're looking well."

"You are kind. And your mother, how charming. Do come in. We have had the east wing prepared for your comfort. Cook has been at the preserves these three days, I do not doubt you will find something to your taste."

Lady Fenwick's expression flickered at the word mother. It was a small thing, a tightening at the corner of her mouth, quickly smoothed. She said nothing, merely inclined her head and permitted herself to be guided toward the staircase.

Julian stepped forward as the group moved past. He had schooled his features into something approaching deference, though the curl at the corner of his mouth suggested he found the whole performance faintly amusing.

"Cousin Marcus," he said, the word cousin offered with a familiarity that stretched the truth of their relation to its very limit. "It has been too long."

Sir Marcus regarded him for a moment, then grunted. "Julian. You've grown."

"Have I?" Julian laughed, a sound that carried through the hall without warming it. "I had not noticed. Do let me take Lady Fenwick's things up. I am at your service, ma'am, as always."

He offered his arm with a flourish that would have been excessive in a ballroom and was certainly excessive here. Lady Fenwick hesitated, then accepted it, her gloved fingers resting on his sleeve as lightly as a leaf on water. They began the ascent, and Lord Ashford observed the set of Julian's shoulders, the angle of his neck, and felt the familiar prickle of caution beneath his ribs.

"Sir Marcus," he said, drawing the baronet's attention back. "Perhaps you would take a glass of something in the library before the ladies settle in. The journey must have been fatiguing."

Sir Marcus looked at him. His eyes were small, set deep beneath a heavy brow, and they missed nothing. "That it was. Lead on, then."

They crossed into the library, a room Lord Ashford had made his own over the years, paneled in oak that smelled of pipe smoke and old paper. He poured two glasses of claret from a decanter on the side table and handed one to his guest. For a moment neither man spoke. The clock on the mantel ticked through the silence, marking the seconds with the patience of a thing that had all the time in the world.

"Your son's grown," Sir Marcus said at last, staring into his glass rather than at his host. "He's got the look of him, your father. The same way of standing."

"I had not thought the resemblance so marked."

"Wouldn't expect you to." Sir Marcus took a sip. "Men don't see themselves, that's the trouble. I see other men well enough, though. Julian's got ambition in him. The kind that wants a thing until it gets it, then wants the next."

Lord Ashford did not sit. He remained by the window, the glass warming in his hand. "He is young."

"Aye. Young and hungry. There's worse combinations." Sir Marcus set his glass down on the table with a precision that suggested he wished to be done with it. "I'll come to the point, since you'll be wondering what I've come for beyond the social visit. I'm told there's a parcel of the south pasture coming up for lease. Hundred acres, good grazing, water from the brook. My steward had word of it from yours last month."

Lord Ashford's expression did not change. He had, in fact, been expecting this. Sir Marcus had cast covetous eyes on the southern fields for years, ever since the previous tenant had died and the land had lain fallow through a season of dispute over drainage rights. It was good land. Any man with eyes could see it was good land.

"I have not yet decided what to do with it," Lord Ashford said. "The pasture has been part of the home farm."

"Haven't been worked these two years, though, have it?"

"The drainage. There were complications."

"Aye. Complications." Sir Marcus's mouth twitched. "Complications have a way of sorting themselves out when the price is right."

The words hung in the air between them, smoke that would not dissipate. Lord Ashford watched the baronet's face and saw there the patience of a man who had learned to wait for what he wanted, and the hunger Julian had spoken of, though in Sir Marcus it sat deeper, quieter, harder to dislodge.

"We shall discuss it during your stay," Lord Ashford said at last. "There are papers in the study, the old surveys. Perhaps you would care to look them over."

"I would." Sir Marcus picked up his glass again. "And perhaps you'd care to look at what I'm offering. Fair rent, sound tenants, improvements to the fencing within the first year. I'm not a man to let property go to ruin."

"No," Lord Ashford said. "I don't imagine you are."

From somewhere above them, the sound of Lady Beatrice's voice drifted down through the floorboards, instructing Mary on the arrangement of the second bouquet, and Julian's lighter tones answering her, soothing, persuasive. The household was assembling itself around these guests like a hand closing into a fist.

Lord Ashford took a sip of his claret and waited to see what shape that fist would take.

The morning of the Fenwicks' first full day at Ashford Park arrived with a pewter sky and the smell of wet gravel rising from the drive. Lord Ashford stood at the window of his dressing room, one hand resting on the frame, watching the light struggle through the low clouds. His wife had left at dawn, their traveling carriage already bearing her and Wilfred toward the Hampshire road and the London coach beyond. He had walked her to the hall, had kissed her cold cheek, had said the proper things about the journey and the weather and the hope that she would find comfort in the capital.

He had not told her that her absence filled him with a dread he could not name.

Now the house belonged to Julian, and Julian would make of it what he wished.

Lord Ashford turned from the window and crossed to the small mahogany desk where his correspondence waited. There were letters from his solicitors, letters from the factor at the Nottingham mill, letters from a cousin in Dublin who required money and offered, in return, only the fumes of obligation. He sat and began to work through them, his pen scratching with the steady rhythm of a man who had long ago learned to find his center in small duties.

An hour passed. Then another.

A knock at the door, light and deferential.

"Come," he said.

It was Peters, the butler, his face arranged in the particular mask he wore when bringing news he suspected his master would not enjoy.

"My lord. Lady Fenwick has requested that a fire be lit in the east parlour, as she finds the morning chill severe. The housemaid has complied, but I wished to inform you that the lady has also taken it upon herself to rearrange the furniture, with the assistance of Sir Marcus's man."

Lord Ashford set down his pen. "Rearranged how?"

"The settee has been moved to face the window, my lord, and the writing desk turned to the wall. Lady Fenwick expressed a preference for the light."

"Then she shall have her light."

"Very good, my lord."

Peters lingered. Lord Ashford looked up.

"There is more."

"My lord."

"Out with it, Peters. You have served me since I was in short coats."

Peters allowed himself a thin smile. "Mr. Julian has requested that Miss Hartwell be asked to attend upon Lady Fenwick this morning. He was most particular. He suggested that Lady Beatrice might find her needlework useful, and that a young person of taste and quiet manners would be a comfort to our guest."

Lord Ashford felt the words settle into him like stones dropped into still water.

"Eleanora Hartwell."

"Yes, my lord."

"Where is she now?"

"I believe Miss Hartwell is at her work in the servants' hall, my lord. She came early, as is her custom."

Of course she had. The girl rose before the household, took her breakfast standing, and bent over her cushion with the focus of a woman who knew that each hour was a measure of rent and bread. He had observed this, in his way, over the months since her father's death. He had approved of it. He had not, until this moment, considered what such approval might cost her.

"Send for her," he said. "Ask her to attend me here before she goes to Lady Fenwick."

Peters bowed and withdrew.

Lord Ashford rose and went again to the window. Below, in the stable yard, he could see Sir Marcus Fenwick inspecting a mare that was being led in circles by a groom, his movements careful, proprietary, the way a man moves when he is calculating the worth of what is not yet his. Julian stood beside him, hat in hand, his laugh carrying upward on the still air.

Eleanora Hartwell arrived within the quarter hour. She came in quietly, her manner holding that quality of stillness he had come to associate with her, as if she had learned to make herself small in rooms where largeness was expected. She wore a morning dress of grey-blue wool, simple but well cut, her dark hair drawn back beneath a small net that caught no light. Her hands, he noticed, were roughened at the fingertips from the constant passage of the bobbins.

She curtseyed. "My lord."

"Sit down, Miss Hartwell."

She did not sit. "I would prefer to stand, if my lord permits. I have work waiting."

The directness of it struck him, and he found he could not be displeased. It was the same quality he had seen in her work, the refusal to dissemble, the clarity of line.

"My son has asked that you attend upon Lady Fenwick this morning."

"I have been so informed, my lord."

"And you have agreed?"

"I have not yet refused, my lord."

He studied her. "Why not?"

She met his eyes, and he saw there the quick intelligence he had noted before, and something else, something harder to name. "Because it would be discourteous to refuse a request from the heir of the house where my sister and I are lodgers. And because I do not yet know what is being asked."

It was, he thought, exactly the right answer.

"Lady Fenwick is not an easy woman."

"No, my lord. I am told she is not."

"Nor is my son an easy master, when he has set his mind to a thing."

A pause. Her face did not change, but something behind it shifted, the way a landscape shifts when the wind changes.

"My lord, may I speak plainly?"

"You may."

"I would rather be asked to do something because it is useful than because it is ornamental. If Lady Fenwick has need of a companion, I will do my best to be one. If she has need of a decoration, I would rather return to my lace."

Lord Ashford felt, in that moment, a respect for her that surprised him. He had hired her, in his way, when he had agreed to let her take the small room at the back of the servants' hall and to buy the patterns she designed. He had told himself it was charity, or prudence, or both. He had not permitted himself to consider that he was making use of a young woman of quality who had been brought low by circumstance, and that what he offered in return might not be enough.

But this was not the moment to amend it.

"You will attend Lady Fenwick," he said. "You will be civil, you will be patient, and you will remember that she is a guest in this house, and that the honor of the house is in your keeping, as much as in any other person's."

"I understand, my lord."

"I do not doubt it." He hesitated, then added, "My son may have views upon what you should say to Lady Fenwick. You will listen to those views. You will not, however, feel obliged to share them."

The faintest color rose in her cheek. "Yes, my lord."

"That will be all, Miss Hartwell. You may go."

She curtseyed again, and withdrew.

Lord Ashford remained at the window, watching the stable yard below. Julian had moved away from Sir Marcus and was now speaking with a groom, his hand resting lightly on the man's arm, the gesture of a young lord who wishes to appear approachable without forfeiting any of his consequence. The mare stamped and shook her head, and Julian laughed, the sound floating upward.

Lord Ashford thought of the girl who had just left him, of her careful hands and her unbending spine, of the way she had stood in his dressing room and refused to pretend she did not understand what was being asked of her. He thought of Julian, and of the uses to which Julian might put her. He thought of the Fenwicks, and of what Sir Marcus might purchase if he were allowed to wait long enough.

He sat down at his desk again, and took up his pen, and tried to find, in the words he owed to his solicitors, some portion of the steadiness the morning had begun to take from him.

In the east parlour, Lady Fenwick arranged and rearranged the cushions upon the settee with the dissatisfied air of a woman who has been promised a great deal and has so far received very little of it. The fire Peters had ordered burned brightly, casting a ruddy glow over the room and over the new arrangement of the furniture, which she had decreed must face the window despite the thin grey light that filtered through the glass. Sir Marcus's man, a tall fellow with a Norfolk accent and a face like a closed shutter, had carried the writing desk to the wall without enthusiasm and had then retreated to the corner where he now stood, a piece of statuary awaiting instruction.

When the door opened, Lady Fenwick turned with an expression that was half expectation, half disappointment.

It was not Eleanora who entered, but Julian.

"My dear Lady Fenwick." He advanced, his hands outstretched, his smile arranged to the precise degree of warmth that the moment required. "I have come to beg a moment of your time before our guest of honor arrives."

"Guest of honor, Mr. Ashford?"

"Miss Hartwell. The young person of whom I spoke. She will attend you this morning, in lieu of my mother, who has been called away to London upon urgent family business."

Lady Fenwick's mouth tightened. She did not care to be attended by substitutes, and she made no effort to conceal it.

"I had understood that Lady Beatrice would be present."

"Lady Beatrice was most anxious to remain, but duty claimed her. My aunt is unwell, you understand. Nothing serious, but these things must be seen to. In her absence, Miss Hartwell is the most suitable person in the household to bear you company. She is a person of refined education, excellent manners, and considerable accomplishments. She designs lace, you know."

Lady Fenwick's eyes narrowed. "Lace."

"Exquisite lace. The finest in the county, my mother has said so more than once. She is also a skilled musician, I am told, though we have not yet prevailed upon her to display her talents."

"Pretty accomplishments," Lady Fenwick said. "Pretty accomplishments do not make a lady."

"No," Julian agreed smoothly. "But they make a companion most agreeable. And I am persuaded that you and Miss Hartwell will find much to discuss. She is, I should mention, the daughter of a mercer who did business with our house for many years. A family of some standing, before reverses."

"Reverses."

"The kind of reverses that overtake even the most prudent, when fortune turns unkind. Miss Hartwell supports herself and her younger sister by the labor of her hands. It is a circumstance she bears with great dignity. My mother has taken her under her protection."

"Protection," Lady Fenwick repeated, in a tone that made the word sound like a door being closed.

Julian inclined his head. "I see I have not made myself clear. Miss Hartwell is treated in every respect as a member of this household. She takes her meals with the family when there is no company. She attends the assemblies in the village. My mother presents her as a young lady of merit, deserving of every consideration."

The silence that followed was the silence of a woman counting.

"And her sister?" Lady Fenwick asked at last. "The younger one. Where is she kept?"

"The younger Miss Hartwell is at present in the schoolroom, under the instruction of our governess. She is a promising child. Quiet, biddable, and most devoted to her elder sister."

"I should like to see her."

The words fell like a stone into the still water of Julian's composure. For a fraction of a moment his eye wavered, then steadied.

"Nothing would give my mother greater pleasure than to present Miss Margaret to you at a suitable moment. Perhaps this afternoon, when Sir Marcus has finished his survey of the home farm. I shall arrange it."

Lady Fenwick's chin lifted. "Do so."

"I shall." Julian bowed. "And now, with your permission, I shall fetch Miss Hartwell. She waits in the corridor, lest she arrive before you were prepared."

He withdrew, and Lady Fenwick was left alone with the fire and the grey light and the small, sharp pleasure of having unsettled, however briefly, the heir to Ashford Park.

Eleanora rose when Julian opened the drawing room door, her hand tightening once on the folded letter before she slipped it beneath her reticule. She had read the lines from Wilfred three times over, committing each phrase to the small locked cabinet of her memory, and what she felt now was not relief nor yet alarm but the particular steadiness that came from knowing precisely where one stood.

"Miss Hartwell." Julian offered his arm with a flourish that was, to his credit, almost convincing. "Our guests await."

She placed her fingers on his sleeve and felt the muscle beneath the superfine cloth, the slight tremor of a man who had been performing composure for the better part of an hour. He did not look at her as they walked. He looked at the ormolu clock on the pier table between the windows, and at the gilt edge of the mirror above the sideboard, and at his own reflection sliding past in the polished surface of the door to the dining room, adjusting his cravat by a fraction of an inch as though the hour demanded nothing more pressing than a well-tied knot.

Dinner was laid for six. Lord Ashford sat at the head of the long table, his chair pushed slightly back from the cloth as though he had already determined to make himself scarce from the conversation. Lady Beatrice occupied the far end, where the candlelight struck the diamonds at her throat and turned them into a small constellation. Sir Marcus and Lady Fenwick took the middle places, facing one another across the silver and the crystal and the careful architecture of a meal that Lady Beatrice had clearly designed to impress.

Eleanora took the seat Julian drew out for her, between him and Sir Marcus. She set her reticule on the floor beside her chair and folded her hands in her lap, feeling the linen napkin cool against her wrists. The first course was already in place: a clear soup of celery and bone marrow, its surface trembling with the heat of the lamps. The room smelled of beeswax and roasting fowl and the faintly bitter undertone of celery seed.

Sir Marcus ate with the methodical attention of a man for whom a meal was an opportunity to gather strength rather than pleasure. He wielded his spoon with precision, set it down at precise intervals, and said nothing. Lady Fenwick watched the footmen with the narrow attention of a woman cataloguing the household's competence, her gaze lingering on the silver salver, the napery, the particular quality of the glass.

Julian lifted his wine.

"A small toast," he said, "to our neighbours, whose company we have too long foregone."

Sir Marcus regarded him over the rim of his glass. "Your father keeps country hours, I observe. We dined at four at the Hall."

"A habit we have not yet adopted," Lady Beatrice interjected, with the faintest emphasis on the pronoun. "We keep town hours at Ashford. The roads will bear improvement before we ape the customs of the northern counties."

Sir Marcus set down his glass without drinking.

The second course arrived: a boiled turbot with oyster sauce, flanked by forced asparagus in tall glass vases. Eleanora helped herself to a portion of the fish, watching from beneath her lashes as Lady Fenwick's eye travelled from the turbot to the silver fork at her own plate to the small printed card propped against the central epergne, on which Lady Beatrice had inscribed the menu in her own fair, unyielding hand.

"You favour fish, Miss Hartwell?" Lady Fenwick enquired.

"When it is well prepared, ma'am."

"A tradesman's daughter learns to eat what is set before her, I suppose."

The observation was delivered with the bright, brittle cadence of a remark meant to pass as wit. Eleanora felt Julian's elbow brush her sleeve, a warning so slight it might have been accidental.

"I was taught," she said, "to give thanks for what is set before me. It is a habit I find useful in households of every degree."

Lady Fenwick's smile thinned. Sir Marcus, who had been studying the turbot as though estimating its market value, looked up for the first time.

"Useful habits," he said, in his flat northern cadence, "are the making of an estate. I have heard it said of your late father that he had few enough. Is that not so, Mr Ashford?"

Julian set down his fork.

"My uncle," he said, "was a man of excellent credit and modest ambition. He served his customers faithfully and retired from business with the goodwill of every house in the county."

"I had heard he did not retire."

The words fell into the centre of the table like a coin into a basin. Julian's hand, half extended toward his glass, paused in mid-air. Lord Ashford, at the head of the table, made a small sound and reached for the decanter. Lady Beatrice's knife struck her plate with a sharp, ringing note.

"Sir Marcus," she said, "you will permit me to serve the fish."

"With pleasure, ma'am."

But the moment had been made, and could not be unmade. Eleanora felt the warmth drain from her cheeks and return a moment later as a slow, hot tide. She kept her eyes on her plate, the bones of the turbot gleaming in the sauce, the pattern of the damask beneath her plate as familiar and as inscrutable as a hand one could not read.

"I had also heard," Sir Marcus continued, in the same unhurried tone, "that the young gentleman here found it expedient to quit Italy before his work was finished. A portrait, was it not? A commission of some consequence. The patron dissatisfied, I collect. The artist returned to England rather than face the music."

Julian's face had gone the colour of the napery.

"You are misinformed," he said. "The portrait was completed to the satisfaction of the patron. I returned to England at my mother's request, on family business of a private nature."

"Of a private nature," Sir Marcus repeated. He reached for his wine at last, and drank. "That is what they say."

"Sir Marcus," Lord Ashford's voice came from the head of the table, low and slightly hoarse, "the saddle of mutton will be cold if we do not attend to it."

"Aye, my lord. Let it be brought in."

The footmen advanced with the great silver dish, and for a few merciful minutes the conversation was reduced to the business of carving and serving. Eleanora took a spoonful of the gravy and found she could taste nothing at all. Beside her, Julian sat very upright, his shoulders drawn back, his breathing shallow and controlled. She knew the posture. She had seen it in the glass when he thought himself unobserved: the posture of a man who had been struck and would not permit himself to bleed in public.

Lady Fenwick, across the table, was watching her.

"It is a great responsibility," Lady Fenwick said, "to be taken up by a family of consequence. One must wonder whether the protection is always what it appears."

Eleanora set down her spoon.

"It is a great responsibility, ma'am, to speak plainly of what one does not understand."

Lady Fenwick's smile did not waver. "A tradesman's daughter has a ready tongue."

"A lacemaker," Eleanora said, "is at liberty to speak when she is spoken to."

The silence that followed was not the silence of a woman counting. It was the silence of a woman uncertain whether she had been answered or outfaced. Sir Marcus, who had been following the exchange with the attentiveness of a man watching two dogs circle, returned his attention to his plate. Julian, beside her, drew a breath so sharp it might have been a laugh.

Lady Beatrice set down her glass.

"Miss Hartwell," she said, in a voice that could have chilled the turbot in its dish, "will favour us with a song after dinner. I have long wished our neighbours to hear what a Hampshire upbringing can produce."

Eleanora inclined her head. "As you wish, ma'am."

She felt Julian's gaze on her cheek like a brand, and beneath the table her hand closed once over the place where the letter lay hidden, and opened again, and did not close.

The saddle of mutton was carved, and the vegetables were served, and the conversation returned to the safer channels of the price of wool and the state of the turnpike. Sir Marcus ate with renewed appetite. Lord Ashford contributed a sentence here and there, in the mild, abstracted manner of a man who had determined to be a piece of furniture for the evening. Lady Fenwick helped herself to the marrow on a small silver spoon, and watched, and waited.

When the cloth was drawn and the decanters set upon the table, Eleanora slipped away to change her shoes. Julian followed her into the corridor, where the candles burned low in their sconces and the portraits of his ancestors looked down from their gilt frames with the polite disapproval of men who had outlived their usefulness.

"She knows," he said, in a voice stripped of its usual music. "She knows about the portrait. She knows about the patron. She knows something about your father that I have not yet had the chance to discover. How much of that did Wilfred tell you?"

"Wilfred," Eleanora said, "told me that I must hold my ground."

"And will you?"

She looked at him. The corridor smelled of beeswax and the faint, acrid perfume of his anxiety. He was very handsome, and very frightened, and not for the first time she pitied him.

"I am holding it," she said. "I have been holding it since I came into this house."

She turned, and went to change her shoes, and left him standing among the portraits in the low, uncertain light.